Just being pedantic but that isn't the Dubai police. That is modeled after an Abu Dhabi police car.

I lived there for 7 years. The Dubai police are green on white, the Abu Dhabi police are red on white.

Also... the highway patrol there is simply not a thing. They have a service up to the Abu Dhabi border called Saeed that deals with traffic crashes and they have a free service called the Road Service Patrol that helps broken down cars and stranded motorists.

Speed enforcement is handled exclusively by traffic cameras that are every few km in Abu Dhabi and in Dubai they are posted every 1km on the road to enforce the limit.

I'm not familiar with this particular display but it wouldn't surprise me if it's just an ad. There is a heavy push to reduce road deaths throughout the UAE because the roads are unbelievably dangerous because of speeding and erratic driving.

Edit: Also just a fun thing. The writing on the side says "Al Shurta" which is the offical word for police in Arabic but most of the Emiratis I knew called them "fazza" which is a warmer sort of expression that means something like a helper. Also... the police there tend to be super nice and friendly. If you do get stopped for some reason or have to deal with them people routinely get out of their cars and shake hands and talk "man to man" with the police. However... if you go into police custody in the UAE it is fucking terrifying. I had a friend get arrested there and jail in the UAE is not something I would wish on anyone, it's legitimately terrifying and kafkaesque.

The police still handle things in an "old Arab" way which is in no way based on the rule of law. So frequent changes to the "rules" while you're in custody are common. You have no access to a lawyer our counsel of any kind unless they feel like giving it to you, the rules are kafkaesque. So they might say "you can't be released without your passport". If you're in police custody you have no way to go get your passport so you sit in jail until you either provide it or get someone to provide it. If you're alone and can't make a phone call it means a simple infraction could land you in jail for weeks (this actually happens so its not just a what if).

Landing in jail for weeks will cause you to lose your job and mark you as "absconded" which is a crime, so now you're in violation of your visa... which is a crime that results in jail and a fine and deportation. So a really simple thing can cause your entire life to basically come crashing down around you.

The jails are frequently squalid, overcrowded, and full of people who will beat you if you step out of line. I wish I could find the sketch. Another person here on Reddit posted a sketch they drew of what it was like to be in jail in Sharjah and it was super accurate based on my friends description. Basically terrible conditions.

Basically frequently changing "rules" that sometimes contradict each other and can cause further consequences through no fault of your own. Westerners frequently escape from the jails because they have money and connections that can help them out and end the Kafka cycle, embassies also step in (happened to my friend) to arrest the cycle and get them deported.

However if you are not Western you can basically languish in the jails for months, sometimes years before they finally just kick you out.

I will also add, people read that and then always make the same 10 comments about "only idiots and assholes would move there then".

No. Normal day to day life is fine and I actually count those 7 years as some of the best years of my life. It's a place like any other place, you just have to realize that at the fringes things get a bit weird.

And people accused me of supporting a regime that kills people... well... kind of yeah I guess. But how is it different than what the US does? I'm an American and while I was in the UAE I knew full well they disappear and kill political dissidents (usually radical Islamic terror sympathizers) but the US conducts extralegal drone killings, assasinations, bombings, I mean hell we invaded another country on no grounds, spent a trillion dollars and wiped out close to 100,000 civilians.

Another argument I get "Oh so you support slavery then!"

No I don't. The way the laborers there were treated was appalling and I didn't approve. But I was literally powerless to do anything about it and half the time their own host countries were just as culpable because of shifty human trafficking services that operate in Pakistan and India themselves. Their own countrymen are screwing them just as badly as anyone in the UAE.

Now go through your closet and look at the labels. Every scrap of clothing you wear, all the electronics you use are made in factories by people that are sometimes slaves and at best are treated poorly.

If you own anything made by Apple you are probably partially responsible for driving some poor Chinese bastard to jump off the roof at the factory.

The global supply chain makes hypocrites of all of us, the only difference is that in the UAE it is right in front of you and not hidden away.

I've seen something similar during my vacation in Florida. In the morning a cop would pull his car over at an intersection, get out, and have his buddy pick him up. The car just sat there all day and slowed down traffic.

Yeah that's assuming you ask them to see what they clocked you at. I've been pulled over a few times for going a bit over the limit. Or, as I like to call it, drop in while black. Because it starts off mentioning speed but then leads into 20 questions.

First off, I was blessed with white skin, I know how cops are when it comes to brown people as sad as that is. It's a fact, being white is indeed a privilege when it comes to interacting with the police. Recently, I asked a cop if I could see his radar to confirm what he clocked me at, he immediately got aggressive asking me who the hell I think I am, don't tell him how to do his job and lastly how he legally didn't have to show me the radar. I calmly said "I didn't ask about the legalities of showing me the radar nor did I try to tell you how to do your job, I want to see your radar to confirm." He got pissy and took a picture of my speed on his radar on his cell phone. I was going 56 in a 55 mph zone. He let me go after telling me that next time he wouldn't be so nice. Lol fucking pigs. They wonder why people don't like them. 9/10 of them are egotistical assholes who think because they enforce the law they're somehow above it and allowed to treat civilians like shit.

Yeah they have to do this because they need to account for cars with inaccurate speedos or old cars with jerky acceleration. I've always known it as a 5mph leeway on ground streets (barring school or construction zones) and 10mph on highways.

Any time I am on the highway and the sign says 65, I set my cruise control to 72 or 73 and relax.

That happens all over the place afaik, but yeah it seems to happen in FL more than I've seen elsewhere in the US. It's hard to find a movie theater or frequented parking lot (in a middle-class+ neighborhood -- high crime areas = more likely for the cars to be occupied), especially after sunset, without a random cop car in it. Maybe we just have a higher copcar:cop ratio here.

But it makes total sense. It's hard to tell if there's actually a cop in there, so it sends a signal that people should be on good behavior in that area ... Without the PD needing to pay a cop to sit there for every parking lot needing attention.

I think you're right, and it's just more obvious that they're engaging in psychological warfare against CWLS (civilians who like to speed) in Florida. In car-centric places, parking where you're highly visible to drivers usually means parking where no reasonable person would park by choice. Seeing a cop car on the side of the road in my densely populated urban environment definitely influences my behavior (yellow means G.... slow down!), but I don't question why there's an empty cop car the way I would when I lived in FL. Maybe they ran into Starbucks to poo, or they're distributing info on shelters to homeless vets in the park?

Flintstones, famous for their fake cars without engines, and also the saying "Yabba dabba doo".The "Yabba Dabba" sounds like "Abu Dhabi". There's an old joke "People in Dubai don't understand Flinstones jokes, but people in Abu Dhabi do" playing on the "yabba dabba doo".The first guy talked about it looking like a Flinstones car, the next guy pointed out the fact that it's not actually a Dubai police car, but one from Abu Dhabi, and incorporated the yabba dabba doo joke.

This is pretty close to "Putting Descartes before the whores". GG boiz, we made a pun that has context and is funny to the point it seemed to have killed any other circle jerk replies! We did it, reddit!

Funny thing I learned on my last trip there: they actually have high-tech speed camera's and traps etc, but the problem was that guys breaking the speed limit in exotic cars had so much money that they'd just pay the fine and keep driving fast. So they changed the laws to iirc a 3 strike system where on the 3rd strike your car gets parked in an outdoor lot for 2 weeks to a month.

I saw one of these lots, the place is a desert bone yard with the sand, wind and heat wrecking these cars all day.

Their supercar fleet it really just for show and public relations. They don't actually patrol in a Veyron, SLS, Brabus G-wagon, McLaren, Aventador, etc. They just take them to touristy places and to events.

This is a bait tactic. There's a cop a half mile down the road waiting for the reaction of: "speeder hauling ass, sees cop car (fake one), smashes brakes, sees that it is fake, speeds back up laughing. BOOM cop half mile down the road roasts ya.

Growing up, there was a bait shop on a long empty road from the lake. People would race on that stretch of road, and ev entually one crashed in to his shop.

He put a fake county sheriff car in front, and it slowed people down for a while, but once it became well known it was ignored.until a real sheriff started parking in front of it. Not hiding, plain view... caught many a racer until the races decided to relocate.

I lived in Korea (South) for a few years a while back, and on the highways there, they'll occasionally have police lights mounted on poles that are partially hidden, and the lights flash every now and then just to act as speed controls in the same way.

It's ingenious, really. While the state doesn't get the revenue from the tickets, it also accomplishes the goal (getting people to slow down) while saving huge on policing costs. Brilliant.

In high school, my older brother picked me up and said we were going for a drive. As we're driving, we are approaching a cop car in the median with an officer standing next to the car holding a radar gun. My brother sees him, rolls down the window, guns it, and screams "fuck you cops!" As he sped past. I'm sitting in the passenger seat thinking "he's lost it and we're both going to jail. "

He then makes a u turn and goes past the cop again. Turns out it was a cardboard cutout of a police officer holding a radar gun next to an actual patrol car. He had driven past it earlier and just wanted to mess with me. Mission accomplished.

Near where I live there's a quiet country road where people drive and speed like total assholes. One of the homeowners actually got an old crown vic and painted up as a cop car and parked it at the end of his driveway so his kids wouldn't get killed, it was super effective.